What happens when a professor assigns a paper to a student?

I read an interesting article by Scott Carlson in the Chronicle of Higher Education on Aug. 17, 2007,

An Anthropologist in the Library, The U. of Rochester takes a close look at students in the stacks.

The U. of Rochester wondered how current undergraduate students handled their research assignments so they hired a campus anthropologist, Nancy F. Foster, to make an assessment.

...Ms. Foster and the librarians at Rochester never realized how often their students are in contact with parents until they started asking about the paper-writing process. They found that soon after getting a paper assignment, many students called their parents to ask what they should write about. And as the students were researching and writing their papers, they were checking in with their parents to talk about the paper or even asking parents to edit their work

The article announced that Ms. Foster's study will be published in a book due out next month from the Association of College and Research Libraries. Her study helped guide a library renovation, influenced a Web-site redesign, led to changes in the way the library markets itself to students, and, in some cases, completely changed the image of undergraduates in the eyes of Rochester librarians.

This may not be the way it is at our campus but to parents reading this blog, please know librarians and library resources at standing by ready to assist.